Never has the talk before a final been so little about the players and so much about the managers, writes Richard Williams.

There will be 22 players on the pitch in Gelsenkirchen tonight, but at times, this week, the European Cup final has seemed like a supporting attraction to the showdown between two men who will be standing on the sidelines.

Never in the 49-year history of the European Cup has the talk before a final been so little about the players and so much about the managers. Partly that is because, for all their merits, the squads of AS Monaco and FC Porto are hardly bulging with household names. Mostly it is because, win or lose, Jose Mourinho and Didier Deschamps are expected to take over much bigger jobs as soon as tonight's work is done.

In the case of the 41-year-old Mourinho, the gleeful vanquisher of Alex Ferguson's Manchester United on the way to the final, the soon to be vacant Chelsea job was said to be his for the taking. Until Gerard Houllier fell on his sword last Monday, all that stood between Mourinho and a place on Roman Abramovich's payroll was a certain amount of haggling over how many Porto players he could bring with him. Then, however, Liverpool let it be known they would be making a bid for his services, in the knowledge that earlier in the season he had expressed a clear preference for Anfield over Stamford Bridge.

For the 35-year-old Deschamps, a mere three years into his managerial career, Juventus seems the most likely destination, in succession to the departed Marcello Lippi. But here, too, there are said to be problems over the Frenchman's insistence that major investment is needed to overhaul the playing staff of a club with whom he spent five years as a player and where he won one of his two European Cup winners' medals.

If Turin is not to be his destination, and if Liverpool succeed in their efforts to snatch Mourinho, then Abramovich - who watched Monaco eliminate his own club in the semi-final - will need only to coax Madame Deschamps out of her alleged reluctance to leave the Cote d'Azur and return to Chelsea, where her husband spent an unhappy season shortly before bringing his playing career to an end.

Neither manager was prepared to tackle the subject head-on in yesterday's press conferences at the Arena AufSchalke. "I don't think that's an important question right now," Deschamps said. "I'm thinking only about this final."

Dismissing it as "a private matter between me and Porto", Mourinho was more forthcoming in response to a question about the effect of the speculation on the squad as they attempt to repeat their club's victory of 1987. "For me it's very clear," he said. "If you ask the players they'll say I'm exactly the same person, working the same way and keeping the same concentration. It's the same for my players who've been linked with other clubs. This final and this club deserve 100 per cent from us. I must set an example for them and think only of this."

But when asked if he thought a manager had to have a free hand in the transfer market, his careful reply gave a clue to his deeper thoughts. "I can't imagine a successful club without a very good relationship between the manager and the board," he said. "It happened once in my life, when I was Benfica's coach, and then I walked out. Porto is a very good example of a successful club because everybody is fighting for the same objective."

A message to Abramovich, perhaps. If you want Mourinho on board, it will have to be on his terms.

Mourinho studied hard, principally under Bobby Robson, to master his trade. His thoroughness, which brought Porto the UEFA Cup last season and has now taken them to their second European final in his two years at the club, could be glimpsed in his description of their training programme over the past few days. "Last Thursday we practised defensive organisation," he said. "On Friday we practised attacking organisation. On Saturday we practised the transition from defence to attack. On Sunday we practised the transition from attack to defence. And on Monday we practised penalties."

Not that he believes this final will go the way of last year's farce, when Milan and Juventus played 120 minutes of football thinking only of the shoot-out. "I'm not a manager who plays only for the result. I want us to show the world that the reason we're here is that we play good football. I don't think anybody's going to win by 3-0 or 4-1, but I don't want my team to come here and play defensively, looking for 0-0 and waiting for penalties. "

Porto and Monaco, he said, share core values. "They've reached the final for the same reason, which is that both of them play as teams. When you don't have five or six of the best players in the world in your team, it's only possible to reach this level by working as a unit. That's what we did and it's what Monaco did, too. "

Against-the-odds successes presented both managers with the first glimpse of glory. For Mourinho, it was the draw at Old Trafford that took Porto into the last eight. "After that," he said, "anything seemed possible."

For Deschamps it was the even more remarkable quarter-final recovery against Real Madrid, winning 3-1 at home after losing 4-2 in the Bernabeu and going through on away goals. "For the squad," he said, "that was the decisive moment." Monaco, who scored eight goals against Deportivo La Coruna in the first round, are known for their attacking brio. Porto are renowned for their defensive solidity.

Nevertheless it was Deschamps who talked the more cautious game yesterday. "If you want a spectacular final," he said, "well, there are fewer and fewer of those. There's so much at stake. The difference will be in the details. Finals are sometimes decided by small things. You can't afford to make mistakes."

But it was also the Frenchman, reflecting on his own switch from playing to managing, who put the match into proper perspective. "I was convinced before, and I'm even more convinced now, that the players are the most important people, because they make the decisions on the pitch," he said. "Once you're a coach you can plan a programme, you can give them instructions and you can pass on the benefit of your experience, but you can't intervene on the pitch any more. It's their match. It's their duty to write this page of history. It's up to them."

And if we buy the newspapers tomorrow morning to read about the exploits of Monaco's Morientes and Porto's Deco rather than the future of two coaches, then the European Cup final will have worked its magic once again. ... Guardian Service